Insulating building structures to inhibit the transmission of vibration and noise from one region to another is common in many environments. For example, vibration dampening pads, mats and tiles for use on floors to inhibit vibration/noise from traveling through floor surfaces are well known.
In many building applications, furring channels are used to attach one part of a building structure, for example wallboard or other sheet material, to another part of the building structure. Noise, transmitted structurally as vibration, is often transmitted from one part of the building to another through the furring channel connection points.
When hanging a ceiling from a structure, furring channels are typically attached to the ceiling joists, and ceiling panels are then hung from the furring channels. In order to reduce noise and vibration transferred via these connections, vibration isolating mounting methods have been employed. For example, mounting clips for mounting standard furring channels to ceiling joist surfaces such that ceiling panels secured to the furring channels are vibrationally isolated from the ceiling joist surfaces have been considered. These clips unfortunately can be expensive to manufacture and in some cases only provide minimal vibration isolation.
Other vibration isolating methods have been considered. For example, U.S. Pat. No. 8,549,809 to Golden et al. discloses a vibration isolating mounting clip in the form of a bent metal strip, which is used to mount a furring channel to a mounting surface. The resilient bent metal strip has a first end and an opposing second end, and a transition portion shaped to fit the furring channel. The resilient bent metal strip has a stiffness and shape such that when the furring channel is positioned in the resilient bent metal strip, the resilient bent metal strip is mounted to the mounting surface, and a finishing substrate is loaded on the furring channel, the furring channel does not contact the mounting surface. Between the ends of the resilient bent metal strip, and the furring channel, are one to several bends, towards and away from the mounting surface to achieve the desired resiliency.
Although various techniques for vibrationally isolating furring channels from ceiling joist surfaces have been considered, improvements are desired. It is therefore an object to provide a novel ceiling isolation hanger and floating ceiling construction employing the same.